Owning a horse is a huge responsibility and with that comes the management of making sure that your horse doesn’t eat too much or eat the wrong kinds of food that will make him gain too much weight. How to get a horse to lose weight is something that most horse owners do not even think about.
Horses, like humans, tend to gain too much weight when they are fed too many treats or the wrong food. So, how do you get a horse to lose weight?
Below is a guide that the AAEP (American Association of Equine Practitioners) has put out on safe ways on how to get a horse to lose weight.
Here is a list of the first things that you need to do. Remember to make any changes to your horse’s diet gradually.
Be patient
This is a slow process. Making changes to a horse’s diet too quickly can cause major stress for your horse and it can cause metabolic upsets which can actually increase fat and disrupt his insulin levels.
Make small changes to help your horse lose weight
Over a week’s time, you need to reduce his feed intake by around ten percent.
Track your horse’s weight loss progress
Make sure to have a “weight tape” to be able to track your horse’s weight loss progress. If the weight loss stalls, slowly reduce the horse’s ration of feed again.
Step it up
Slowly add more exercise time. As your horse loses more weight, add more intensity and time to his exercise.
Ensure plenty of clean water
Make sure that your horse has plenty of clean drinking water. This will aid in your horse’s digestive system functions, and also help in ridding his body of waste.
Feed a high fiber diet
Be sure that his food is high in fiber but low in total energy. Also, make sure to measure his feed in weight and not in volume.
Choose low fat
Fat is an “energy-dense nutrient” so be sure to feed your horse food that is low fat.
Steer clear of alfalfa hay
Replace alfalfa hay with either oat hay or with mature grass. This will help to reduce the calorie count your horse is eating. But if you insist on giving him alfalfa then it needs to be only twenty percent of the ratio of forage. It will be enough to raise the quality of protein within the forage mixture. This will aid in maintaining the function of his immune system that helps to protect muscles, bones, organs, hair, skin, and hooves. Do not use anything with a protein that is of low quality. It stores fat and is unusable.
Feed this horse separately
If you have other horses, feed your overweight horse separately. This takes away any chance he has at eating his share of food and possibly eating another horse’s share.
Consider activity level and age
Age and activity level plays a big part in balancing out your horse’s diet. His intake of minerals, vitamins, and protein needs to be adjusted to make sure it meets the requirements he needs.
Rules to help your horse lose weight safely
Just as with humans, there is a safe way on how to get a horse to lose weight and there are ways that are not so safe.
Reduce calories
The reason that most horses gain too much weight is that they are given too many sugary sweets, or they are given concentrated feed. Don’t be fooled, even the concentrated food that is specifically for aiding in weight loss, adds too many calories.
Don’t offer sweet treats or cereal grain
You need to stay away from cereal grains. This includes corn barley, oats, wheat, and any pellet food that has cereal grain in it. Change to feed made from soybean meal, beet pulp, or flax.
As far as treats, do not feed your horse any treats made from molasses or cereal grain. Also, no apples or carrots because they are high in sugar.
Consider a forage only diet
A diet that is all forage may be best for your horse, it all depends on the horse’s age, his condition, and his exercise routine (or workload). Before doing this, have the hay that you use tested for fructan (a type of carbohydrate), starch, and sugar. The hay needs to have a level of starch and simple sugars (ESC) that is under ten percent. You may also need to add mineral/vitamin supplements.
Free-choice fed
You should be giving your horse forage constantly. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The reason for this is that a horse’s “digestive tract” is made for a constant forage movement all day long. If you give your horse the freedom to graze then he will regulate his own intake by eating only what he needs to, to keep his condition maintained.
So, why is it that when he is in the stable does he inhale everything you give him? When a horse is not able to graze and eat whatever he wants, he isn’t sure when his next feeding will be so he eats everything he can so his body will store the excess of food until he is fed again. This can lead to the horse being overweight.
So, with forage, you can give him as much as he wants. Remember, when you start to give him free choice that he will overeat because it takes roughly seven days for him to learn that the forage will always be there. When he trusts in that, he will start to regulate himself.
Safe grazing for an ‘insulin resistant’ horse
There is a time that is safer than others to let your horse graze. If you have an insulin-resistant horse then the best time for this is in the mornings. Why? Because in the mornings the fructan, sugar, and starch in the grass are at a lower level. The more sunlight the grass has, the more NSC it will produce. Also, in the latter part of fall and the earlier part of spring, the NSC levels are high if the temperature drops below forty degrees.
Add more exercise
Any kind of exercise will reduce insulin resistance. Of course, it also will burn calories and add muscle. The more muscle your horse has the more calories he will burn.
No long term use of thyroid hormone replacements
The supplemental Thyro-L is suitable if your horse has “chronic laminitis” and he isn’t able to get any exercise. But unless directed by your vet, do not use this longer than six months so your horse’s thyroid gland can resume its function.
Caution: Iron
Too much iron increases your horse’s insulin resistance and decreases his immune functions. The forage that he will be getting will supply all of the iron that he needs.
Nutrients that are usually under-supplied
Vitamin E
Selenium and Vitamin E will work with each other, but Selenium can also be very toxic to the horse, even at low levels. Make sure that you check the level of the entire diet before giving your horse supplements.
Omega 3 (fatty acids)
These acids are unsaturated, and they are definitely necessary to aid in joint health, hair & hoof conditioning, regulating the horse’s insulin, and immune function. Also flaxseed, in small amounts, can help to support a horse’s health.
Magnesium
This aids in your horse burning fat instead of storing it by helping to circulate the lower insulin levels.
Tip: Do not restrict forage
If you restrict your horse from eating forage, this will actually cause him to gain weight because it lowers his metabolism which causes calories to be expended at a much slower rate.
Allowing the horse to eat forage as much as he wants will stimulate his metabolism causing him to lose unwanted weight.
Conclusion
Excessive weight can ruin the quality of a horse’s life. So how do you get a horse to lose weight? Giving your horse just a little more care and attention, and being careful to watch how much he eats, not feeding him too many apples and carrots (we know horses love these), will help him to maintain his perfect weight and make for a happy horse.